about THE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL ART

Donald Trump's Inauguration and first weeks as President were enough to convince Charles Krause that the make-it-or-break-it-test of the power of Art to influence the dynamic of political change had arrived. The title of his gallery's Inauguration Day exhibit, The Age of Acquire'us, was proving to be all too accurate; whether or not the Trump campaign proactively conspired with the Russians to win the election, our President began reading from Vlad Putin's playbook for demoralizing and weakening the United States from the minute he took office. MORE TO COME

about CHARLES KRAUSE / REPORTING FINE ART

CHARLES KRAUSE / REPORTING FINE ART (CK/RFA) is believed to be the only commercial art gallery in the United States dedicated exclusively to showing modern and contemporary politically-engaged art. Founded in 2011 and located at 1602 Seventh Street NW, within walking distance of the White House, in Washington, DC, the Gallery has presented 20 solo and group exhibitions of what Mr. Krause calls The Art of Social and Political Change. These exhibitions have shown work by more than 60 artists from 15 countries working in almost every medium and style, spanning the years 1950 to 2016. The Gallery's name was chosen to reflect its Founding Director's life-long interest in fine art and his career as an award-winning foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, CBS News, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and PBS (1983-2000).

Having seen the power of fine art to influence social and political change while on assignment in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Mr. Krause opened his Gallery hoping to persuade art historians, museum curators, critics and private collectors that the motivation underlying an artist's work, and its impact influencing positive social and political attitudes and change, should be recognized as an important consideration when evaluating an artist's work in the 21st Century.

The Art of Changeby Samuel Hughes, published in the January/ February, 2013 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette, provides excellent background information about Charles Krause, his gallery and the Art of Social and Political Change. The Gazette is the alumni magazine of The University of Pennsylvania, where Mr. Krause did his undergraduate work and was editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

THE ART OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE

Since2011,the Gallery has presented art that has sought to influence public attitudes about, or increase public awareness of, issues ranging from gun control to genocide, immigration reform, political corruption, income inequality, the human and financial cost of U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, Citizens United and political paralysis in the United States to artistic freedom in Putin's Russia, the plight of Uighur people in China, the gathering of military intelligence and its impact on civil liberties and, most recently, the 2016 election and dangers the Trump presidency portends for artistic freedom and civil liberty in the years ahead.

The Gallery's very first exhibit, titled The Graphic and Fine Art of Poland's Jerzy Janiszewski: The Artist Whose Graphic Design Changed History (December, 2011-January, 2012) sought to define The Art of Social and Political Change by presenting the work of an artist, virtually unknown in the United States, whose logo for Lech Walesa's Solidarity trade union movement in Poland, created in 1980, was critically important to keeping alive the spirit of democratic revolution in Poland for nearly a decade. In 1989-90, it became the recognized symbol of the "velvet revolutions" that overturned Soviet control of Eastern Europe, leading to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet Union itself, in late 1991.

Charles Krause’s interest in the art of protest and political developed over the course of his career as a foreign correspondent, beginning in 1978 when he became The Washington Post's South America bureau chief, based in Buenos Aires.

Over the following two decades, his assignments for The Post, CBS News and The PBS NewsHour included: Jonestown…the “Dirty War” in Argentina…the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua…insurgency and counter-insurgency in Central America…the Falklands /Malvinas War…Marcos and the Peoples Revolution in the Philippines…the U.S. invasion of Panama…Mexico and NAFTA…the War in the Gulf…the liberation of Kuwait… Israel and the Middle East…Poland and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe…the collapse of the Soviet Union…the Balkans and the US-led intervention in Kosovo.

His reporting was recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with an Emmy Award for his reporting from Israel and the Middle East (1997); the Latin American Studies Association Media Award for his Central America coverage (1987); and the Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle Award for his reporting from Jonestown, where he was shot and wounded while on assignment for The Washington Post (1978). His book, “Guyana Massacre: The Eyewitness Account,” was a best-seller and adapted for television by CBS. Broadcast in 1980, “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones” remains the 10th most watched miniseries ever broadcast in the United States.

Mr. Krause’s interest in fine art began as a teenager, when his parents began collecting work of Ferdinand Leger, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, Louise Nevelson and other important 20th Century artists.

He is a graduate of the Cranbrook School for Boys in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania (where was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and is a former Trustee) and holds a masters degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He currently serves as president of the American Friends of the Gdansk Theatre Foundation and is a member of the Inter-American Foundation's International Advisory Board. He is a former board member of USA for UNHCR, the American support committee for the United Natgions High Commissioner fior Refugees and a former Trustee of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

ABOUT MILLENNIUM ARTS SALON

Opening its 17th year of programming, Millennium Arts Salon (MAS) is dedicated to "...advancing cultural literacy through the arts and cultural programming", principally through its artist salon talks, exhibitions, art publications, domestic and international tours, and special events. Based in Columbia Heights, Washington, DC, USA, Millennium Arts Salon delivers artistic and cultural perspectives through the world's prominent artists and practitioners in the visual, curatorial, performing, film, historical narrative, musical, and literary arts to an ever-expanding audience in the Greater Washington Area and beyond. MAS has many university, museum, gallery, theater and community-based organization partnerships which pursue the elevation of inter-cultural and cross-ethnic understanding leveraging the power of the arts, aesthetics, culture and the humanities toward the betterment of human affairs. The matter of social and political change fine art practice is prominent in the organization's portfolio of support. Millennium Arts Salon documents its "salons" through video-taping and photography, providing an archival repository of primary research in artistic and cultural content to be made available to generations of students, researchers, and appreciators of cultural and artistic development for generations to come. www.millenniumartssalon.org and facebook.com/millenniumartssalon